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Mr. Popper's Penguins
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Mr. Popper's Penguins
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Mr. Popper's Penguins

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Mr. Popper and his family have penguins in the fridge and an ice rink in the basement in this hilarious Newbery Honor book that inspired the hit movie! How many penguins in the house is too many? Mr. Popper is a humble house painter living in Stillwater who dreams of faraway places like the South Pole. When an explorer responds to his letter by sending him a penguin named Captain Cook, Mr. Popper and his family’s lives change forever. Soon one penguin becomes twelve, and the Poppers must set out on their own adventure to preserve their home. First published in 1938, Mr. Popper’s Penguins is a classic tale that has enchanted young readers for generations.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Richard and Florence Atwater including rare photos from the authors’ estate.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 14, 2011
ISBN9781453219607
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Author

Richard Atwater

Richard Tupper Atwater (1892–1948) lived in Chicago and worked as a journalist, often writing humorous pieces for newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune. He wrote two books for children before beginning Mr. Popper’s Penguins, a 1939 Newbery Honor Book. Before he could finish the story, however, he became ill. His wife, Florence Hasseltine Atwater (1899–1979) finished the book, helping launch a story that has remained popular for generations.

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Reviews for Mr. Popper's Penguins

Rating: 3.9379733787878792 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,056 ratings80 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Must read before or after you watch the movie. Brings the story to life, and makes you build a connects with the Penguins even more. Very easy read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was completely silly, fun and light-hearted. Great for children and adults alike. The reader Nick Sullivan did a fantastic job making each and every character and penguin come to life in the reading. There was music and sound effects that helped with the ambiance as well. An overall great audio book experience.The story on the other hand is a bit dated and some of the penguin information is now found to be misleading. We all know that the male is the one who takes care of the egg and that there are penguins living in other place than the South Pole. If your children read this book we just need to make these things clear to them if they ask. Also, I was quite disappointed that Mr. Popper never stood up for himself and let himself get pushed around by people he didn't even know. Mr. Popper was a very kind man who never wanted to cause harm to anyone. I guess it was a lesson on turning the other cheek, but man I would have yelled at the lady on the street, she was so mean!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I found this book a bit silly, but my kids (5,3,3) though it was hilarious. The familial relationships are very dated as well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I remember this book when I was a kid. I loved it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a very motivating story for young kids. It tells the story of a man who has a dream, and when he has the opportunity to fight for his dream, and also provide for his family. He takes his dream very far and fulfills it, but then he is also faced with a choice that will either benefit him or benefit his penguins. This book teaches lessons of selflessness as well. Very much a classic. Probably better for younger kids, beginning chapter books, because some of the language is very simplistic and childish.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Mr. Popper is a house painter about to hit his quiet season of winter who dreams of travel, especially in polar regions, when a gift of a penguin unexpectedly arrives from Admiral Drake's antarctic expedition.This Newbery Honor award-winning story shows its age from the language (Mr. and Mrs. Popper call each other "Mama" and "Papa" among other wording choices) to the simplistic explanations ("Yes, Papa, I know seals can balance balls on their noses"). A few plot developments were logically sketchy at best. It was sometimes amusing, but mostly I was bored and underwhelmed. Perhaps young children who enjoy penguins would be interested, though most I know would get impatient with the rather slow development of the story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Maybe it's nostalgia--and the penguins--but I adore this book. I was housesitting for a family whose 20 yo daughter had this in her bedroom, and as soon as I saw it, I plucked it off the shelf and read it in an hour or two. It's as good as it was when I was nine!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Simply delightful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Summary: This book is about a man named Mr. Popper. He was a painter, writer and wanted to explore the Artic. So he wrote to the people who explored the Artic, and they ended up sending him penguins. He had to take care of these penguins and figure out how to get the penguins back home.Person al reaction: I thought this book was really cute, and it is a fun book to read either by yourself or to a class. Classroom Extension: I would use this book during the winter time. You could use it when you are giving a lesson about Antarctica. You could also use this book and have the kids create their own penguin while you read and they can make a name and a story for the penguin.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mr. Popper's Penguins is a delightful book. It brought my 5th grade class a lot of joy. I read it to my class just for the joy of reading. They loved how the penguins took over the Popper household. I give it 5 stars for enjoyment. I plan to continue using this book as a read aloud for years to come. I also plan to read it to my own children.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A celebration in the absurd. I love children's books because so rarely do you have to question how or why the absurd happens and the logical cause-effect expectations get abandoned. This story is a good exercise in this; no one seems to know what a penguin is (aside from the Poppers and the scientists), all of the family's problems are solved *by* their biggest problem (the penguins), and the law doesn't get involved (for the most part) with an unlicensed person owning non-native wildlife.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I haven't read this, my daughter did. She finished it in less than an hour and laughed out loud several times, so she seemed to enjoy it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good fun story!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was my favorite book when I was a little girl. I loved penguins as a child so this book was like my dream. It is a classic that I will pass on to my children.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    i had to read this for school and found it sorta intersting but REALLLLLY boring
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mr. Popper is a humble house painter that lives in Stillwater. Mr. Popper is fascinated by the world, especially the Arctic and the Antarctica. Mr. Popper receives a package from explorer Admiral Drake shortly after writing him a letter. The package contained a penguin from the Antarctica. The new member of the Popper family is greeted warmly and is named Captain Cook. But when Captain Cook becomes ill Mr. Popper writes to Dr. Smith, the Curator of the Aquarium in Mammoth City. Dr. Smith explains that possibly Captain Cook is experiencing loneliness and sends Greta to live with the Popper family. Greta and Captain Cook make each other very happy and create their own penguin family of ten. The Popper family trains their twelve penguins to perform in theaters throughout the country. This book shows to children in a whimsical way the responsibility it takes to take care of a pet. It also shows friendship between owner and pet. My mother, who is a true penguin lover, would get a kick out of this book.Extension Ideas1. Pick one of the expeditions mentioned in the book and incorporate it into a history lesson or a geography lesson.2. Have the children create a penguin out of construction paper. Encourage them to personalize their penguin by drawing or creating items out of construction paper (such as: a necklace, a hair bow, headphones, or an ice cream cone)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This one was fun to read out loud, and my kids adored it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good book for all ages
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is about a man named Mr. Popper. He has a wife and two kids.They are named Bill and Janie. He works as a painter and decorator. Mr. Popper is a dreamer. He dreams of big adventures. Mr. Popper wants to go to the South Pole. It's one of his biggest dreams. Since, he can't go to the South Pole, he reads about them. Mr. Popper admires the penguins the most. A man that is on the radio, named Admiral Drake gets sent a letter from Mr. Popper. Mr. Popper writes to Admiral Drake about penguins. Admiral Drake give Mr. Popper a surprise by sending him a penguin. Mr. Popper starts to has problems. So, he writes another letter. They send him more penguins.This book wouldn't be recommended for my age, but it was a very fun book to read. This book would probably be recommended to kids younger than me. Other than age, this book was definitely five stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A cute story. A nice mix of penguin trivia and fantastical nonsense. I was sort of surprised by how flippant Mrs. Popper was at the end when Mr. Popper decided to go away to the North Pole for a couple years. The illustrations by Lawson inside the book are actually pretty good. Some of them even have a tad of creepy in them.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Popper's Penguins* Read via NetGalleyThis book is definitely a solid 4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes because it is memorable and surprisingly entertaining throughout. I read this book a long time ago and thought I should read it again because of the movie that came out based on the book.Mr. Popper is a house painter so he only has money for about half of the year, the other half his family lives on what he makes. Let's just say that the Popper's aren't exactly rich. Mr. Popper looks forward to sitting around the house and his favorite radio show is about the polar explorer Admiral Drake. He loves hearing about the arctic and is very surprised when he receives a present in the mail. This present is a real live penguin.This is a fun story to read and I laughed at a lot of parts that I had forgot about. One of my favorite parts is that at first the family actually modifies the refrigerator so the penguin can live inside. This is a pretty ingenious thing and makes quite a memorable image. The illustrations in the book also help the story move along and add some great breaks to the book.Having a penguin of course causes a commotion is town and it's not long before a girl penguin is added to the mix and after a while they end up with twelve penguins. Then it kind of turns into a situation like in that episode of The Simpsons where they can't afford to feed and keep Lisa's horse. The Popper's are a little more creative though and start an act featuring the penguins which soon makes them massively popular and extremely profitable.There are problems and plenty of penguin shenanigans to overcome but you can really imagine what an entertaining show this would truly be. The ending really shows it's age though and struck me at least a little strange for a children's book, it's probably more fitting for the era in which it was originally written.Rereading this story made me realize all over again how good a story it is and how it has probably spurred many generations to love penguins. Overall this book is one that stands the test of time and will probably be enjoyed far into the future.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An ADORABLE story about how Mr. Popper gets wonderful penguins and has many adventures. I would recomend this book to younger children, such as elementary school grades, but it is enjoyable for any age group.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It seems to happen to me all the time - I read a book and then discover it's coming out as a movie. Not to say I'd rather see the movie, but just that it's an odd thing. Anyway, on to the review. The story is cute and although anyone giving serious consideration to Mr. Popper's actions would probably be quite upset with how inconsiderate he is to his family, the book isn't meant as some deep-probing psychological piece. It's light entertainment and although I was reading it to my son for bedtime, I still had some chuckles and can see why it's still around and getting the movie treatment after more than 70 years since its first publication.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The characters in this book are well written, you can see them and experience them all at once. Even the penguins have a personality and way about them that makes you almost feel that they are there in the room with you, wandering around while you watch them. The story is touching and memorable, with just enough fantasy to stimulate the mind, but plenty of fact to justify the oddities. A must read for anyone wanting to share a fun, amusing story with their children and a book those children will probably revisit again later in their lives. Worthy of the Newbery Honor.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Adorable! All the bad things the penguins do, and how Mr. popper and his family gets themselves out of it. Completely adorable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mr Popper's Penguins is one of those classic childhood books that kids always remember. Kids will love it because it has a movie to go with it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mr. Poppers Penguins is about a house painter who dreams of traveling to far away places. He writes the explorers in Antarctica and as a response he is sent a Penguin. Through the course of the book he gets another penguin and the first two have baby penguins. Mr. Popper and his family transform their home into a place suitable for penguins and train their penguins. They eventually travel around as a traveling entertainment show. Mr. Popper and the penguins are made famous. The book is very funny, with many humorous situations, from walking the penguin a leash to the penguins antics at their shows. The book would be a great away to talk about travel and fantasies with young students. Children could describe somewhere they wish they could visit.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Title Mr. Popper's Penguin'sAuthor Richard AtwaterIllustrator Florence AtwaterPublisher Little Brown BooksDate 1992Pages 139Short Summary: Mr. Popper is a house painter he dreams of traveling the world but he doesn't have the money to so instead he reads magazines about famous people and distant lands. The Popper family one day turns on their radio and a broadcast comes up and there is an admiral Drake who is exploring Antarctica the admiral has actually answered a letter from Mr. Popper and he promises Mr. Popper a surprise in the mail. His big surprise is a penguin named Captain cook who sleeps in the freezer in their home. He ends up getting another penguin sent to him because Captain Cook is lonely it is a female penguin. This female penguin ends up having twelve other penguins and Mr. Popper enters al these penguins in a circus.Tags and subject headings would be friendship and loveMy Response: I actually have seen the movie to this before I read the book. The movie is pretty good and pretty funny too. It pretty much follows the book. I think penguins are such cute animals also. Good book and movie also.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An old story but still entertaining.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Life is hard for a painter in Stillwater in the 1930's. Times are tough, and money and work are scarce. Fortunately, Mr. Popper is an avid listener of the radio. He sends in fan mail to his favourite show, and ultimately wins a male penguin: Captain Cook. As is usually the case with household pets, one leads to two. The zoo sends the Popper's their female penguin, Greta. As expected, two penguins turn the Poppers' lifestyle upside-down. It is incredibly difficult to create an adequate living space for two penguins! But this is only where the adventure begins, because Captain Cook and Greta have plenty of bundles of joy on the way. Mr. Popper's Penguins is adorable. It is heartwarming. It is essentially a children's classic. Mr. Popper's Penguins is a story every child could love, and a story that adults want to read every so often to remind them of their childhoods. It won the Newbery Honor Book award in 1939, and has stood the test of time.

Book preview

Mr. Popper's Penguins - Richard Atwater

Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Richard and Florence Atwater

Illustrated by Robert Lawson

Contents

Chapter I Stillwater

Chapter II The Voice in the Air

Chapter III Out of the Antarctic

Chapter IV Captain Cook

Chapter V Troubles with a Penguin

Chapter VI More Troubles

Chapter VII Captain Cook Builds a Nest

Chapter VIII Penguin’s Promenade

Chapter IX In the Barber Shop

Chapter X Shadows

Chapter XI Greta

Chapter XII More Mouths to Feed

Chapter XIII Money Worries

Chapter XIV Mr. Greenbaum

Chapter XV Popper’s Performing Penguins

Chapter XVI On the Road

Chapter XVII Fame

Chapter XVIII April Winds

Chapter XIX Admiral Drake

Chapter XX Farewell, Mr. Popper

A Biography of Richard and Florence Atwater

Chapter I

Stillwater

IT WAS AN afternoon in late September. In the pleasant little city of Stillwater, Mr. Popper, the house painter, was going home from work.

He was carrying his buckets, his ladders, and his boards so that he had rather a hard time moving along. He was spattered here and there with paint and calcimine, and there were bits of wallpaper clinging to his hair and whiskers, for he was rather an untidy man.

The children looked up from their play to smile at him as he passed, and the housewives, seeing him, said, Oh dear, there goes Mr. Popper. I must remember to ask John to have the house painted over in the spring.

No one knew what went on inside of Mr. Popper’s head, and no one guessed that he would one day be the most famous person in Stillwater.

He was a dreamer. Even when he was busiest smoothing down the paste on the wallpaper, or painting the outside of other people’s houses, he would forget what he was doing. Once he had painted three sides of a kitchen green, and the other side yellow. The housewife, instead of being angry and making him do it over, had liked it so well that she had made him leave it that way. And all the other housewives, when they saw it, admired it too, so that pretty soon everybody in Stillwater had two-colored kitchens.

The reason Mr. Popper was so absent-minded was that he was always dreaming about far-away countries. He had never been out of Stillwater. Not that he was unhappy. He had a nice little house of his own, a wife whom he loved dearly, and two children, named Janie and Bill. Still, it would have been nice, he often thought, if he could have seen something of the world before he met Mrs. Popper and settled down. He had never hunted tigers in India, or climbed the peaks of the Himalayas, or dived for pearls in the South Seas. Above all, he had never seen the Poles.

That was what he regretted most of all. He had never seen those great shining white expanses of ice and snow. How he wished that he had been a scientist, instead of a house painter in Stillwater, so that he might have joined some of the great Polar expeditions. Since he could not go, he was always thinking about them.

Whenever he heard that a Polar movie was in town, he was the first person at the ticket-window, and often he sat through three shows. Whenever the town library had a new book about the Arctic or the Antarctic — the North Pole or the South Pole — Mr. Popper was the first to borrow it. Indeed, he had read so much about Polar explorers that he could name all of them and tell you what each had done. He was quite an authority on the subject.

His evenings were the best time of all. Then he could sit down in his little house and read about those cold regions at the top and bottom of the earth. As he read he could take the little globe that Janie and Bill had given him the Christmas before, and search out the exact spot he was reading about.

So now, as he made his way through the streets, he was happy because the day was over, and because it was the end of September.

When he came to the gate of the neat little bungalow at 432 Proudfoot Avenue, he turned in.

Well, my love, he said, setting down his buckets and ladders and boards, and kissing Mrs. Popper, the decorating season is over. I have painted all the kitchens in Stillwater; I have papered all the rooms in the new apartment building on Elm Street. There is no more work until spring, when people will want their houses painted.

Mrs. Popper sighed. I sometimes wish you had the kind of work that lasted all year, instead of just from spring until fall, she said. It will be very nice to have you at home for a vacation, of course, but it is a little hard to sweep with a man sitting around reading all day.

I could decorate the house for you.

No, indeed, said Mrs. Popper firmly. Last year you painted the bathroom four different times, because you had nothing else to do, and I think that is enough of that. But what worries me is the money. I have saved a little, and I daresay we can get along as we have other winters. No more roast beef, no more ice cream, not even on Sundays.

Shall we have beans every day? asked Janie and Bill, coming in from play.

I’m afraid so, said Mrs. Popper. Anyway, go wash your hands, for supper. And Papa, put away this litter of paints, because you won’t be needing them for quite a while.

Chapter II

The Voice in the Air

THAT EVENING, WHEN THE little Poppers had been put to bed, Mr. and Mrs. Popper settled down for a long,

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